• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

US Sanctions Threaten Iranians’ Right to Health: HRW

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
10/29/19
in Featured, World
An Iranian woman walks past an anti-US mural painted on the wall of the former US embassy in Tehran on November 19, 2011

The troubled history of Iran-US ties is at the foundation of broken relations today. Photo: Atta Kenare, AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Washington’s sanctions against Tehran have drastically constrained its ability to pay for humanitarian imports and are threatening the health rights of Iranians, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last year and reimposed punishing sanctions as part of a stated campaign of “maximum pressure” against the Islamic republic.

Officially, the punitive measures make exceptions for food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods, but most companies are unwilling to do any trade with Iran for fear of repercussions in the world’s largest economy.

Trump “administration officials claim they stand with the Iranian people, but the overbroad and burdensome U.S. sanctions regime is harming Iranian’s right to health, including access to live-saving medicines,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at HRW.

“The comprehensive web of U.S. sanctions has led banks and companies to pull back from humanitarian trade with Iran, leaving Iranians who have rare or complicated diseases unable to get the medicine and treatment they require,” she added.

The sanctions include previously suspended nuclear-related embargoes including on Iran’s oil exports and financial transactions, with new ones added.

The U.S. Treasury said they were imposed to make Iran’s leaders “cease support for terrorism, stop proliferating ballistic missiles, end destructive regional activities, and abandon their nuclear ambitions.”

Iranian officials maintain that the regime has no nuclear ambitions and international watchdog groups – as well as U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies – have consistently found that Iran was in compliance with the deal and has no nuclear weapons program.

In a 47-page report, HRW documents how the U.S.-built exemptions for humanitarian imports into its sanctions regime have failed to offset the strong reluctance of U.S. and European companies and banks to finance humanitarian goods.

Iranian patients have struggled with a foreign medicine shortage and price hikes for over a year both due to reimposed U.S. trade sanctions as well as a battered economy with a free-falling currency.

Medicine importers get subsidized currency rates from the government, yet foreign drugs and medical equipment cannot always be found in state-owned pharmacies.

Iran produces 96 percent of the drugs it uses but imports more than half the raw materials to make them, according to the Syndicate of Iranian Pharmaceutical Industries.

It also has to import special medicine which patients with rare diseases require.

HRW called on the U.S. to “get serious about addressing the harm resulting from its cruel sanctions regime.”

Washington must create “a viable financial channel with reasonable requirements for companies, banks and groups to provide humanitarian goods for people in Iran,” it said.


More on the Subject 

How Iran Plans to Weather the Storm of US Sanctions

 

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Pfizer logo and vaccines
World

Pfizer to Sell More Drugs at Cost to Poor Nations

by Staff Writer
January 18, 2023
Donald Trump
National

US Supreme Court Freezes Release of Trump Tax Returns

by Staff Writer
November 1, 2022
Donald Trump
National

US Capitol Riot Probe Votes to Subpoena Trump to Testify

by Staff Writer
October 13, 2022
Steve Bannon
National

Former Trump Advisor Bannon Charged With Fraud in New York

by Staff Writer
September 8, 2022
US President Donald Trump
Opinion

Donald Trump Thanks You for Your Sacrifice

by Stephen J. Lyons
August 17, 2022
Mar-A-Lago raid
National

FBI Raid on Trump’s Home Ignites Political Firestorm

by Staff Writer
August 9, 2022
Next Post
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro

Furious Bolsonaro Denies Links to Brazil Politician's Murder

A nurse shows the malaria vaccine Mosquirix

Malaria: A Need for New Solutions

Recommended

Damage from a series of powerful storms and at least one tornado is seen on March 25, 2023, in Rolling Fork, Mississippi

After Tornado Kills 25, Mississippi Faces More Extreme Weather

March 26, 2023
Transgender Army veteran Tanya Walker speaks to protesters in Times Square near a military recruitment centre

Tennessee Is A Drag on the First Amendment

March 26, 2023
participants of an artificial intelligence conference

How AI Could Upend the World Even More Than Electricity or the Internet

March 19, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
Heavily armed police inspect the area near a Jehovah's Witness church where several people have been killed in a shooting in Hamburg, northern Germany

Eight Dead in Shooting at Jehovah’s Witness Hall in Germany

March 10, 2023
Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, on November 26, 2016

US Announces $26M in New Aid for Rohingya

March 8, 2023

Opinion

Transgender Army veteran Tanya Walker speaks to protesters in Times Square near a military recruitment centre

Tennessee Is A Drag on the First Amendment

March 26, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
An earthquake survivor reacts as rescuers look for victims and other survivors in Hatay, a Turkish province where hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the earthquake

Heed the Call of Our Broken World

March 1, 2023
Top view of the US House of Representatives

‘Cringy Awards:’ Who Is the Most Embarrassing US House Representative?

February 13, 2023
Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York

George Santos for Speaker!

January 16, 2023
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post